


stained hands, for you

by enamuko



Series: Casphardt Week [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 06:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: Caspar will always need someone to look out for him, and make sure he gets out of whatever mess he's gotten into alive. Linhardt has volunteered for a lifetime position, no matter the cost.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Series: Casphardt Week [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535510
Comments: 9
Kudos: 90





	stained hands, for you

**Author's Note:**

> Second Casphardt week prompt here! Prompt is 'Healing'.  
Minor depictions of canon-typical violence, nothing graphic at all.

It wasn’t that Linhardt  _ wanted _ to be a battlefield medic. In fact, it was probably the furthest thing from ‘want’ he could ever imagine. When he had come to Garreg Mach he hadn’t even really intended on training up his healing skills, even though he’d always had an affinity for it. Mostly he had just gone because it meant being away from his parents so they couldn’t criticize his laziness, and since Caspar was going, there was really no reason for him to object when they told him he would be going as well.

So no. He didn’t want to be a field medic. He didn’t want to spend his days studying the effects of weapons and magic on the human body and all the horrific ways people could end up dying if he wasn’t fast enough to save them, and he  _ especially _ didn’t want to see them firsthand while his classmates cut down bandits and rogues around them, no matter how much Professor Byleth tried to keep him off the front lines.

But he didn’t have much of a choice. Which was not usually a deterrent for Linhardt. He also ‘didn’t have much of a choice’ about inheriting his father’s estate or marrying some noblewoman so they could have kids and he could pass on his Crest, but the likelihood of  _ that _ happening was slim to none, no matter what his parents thought, so.

But this? Well, as much as he wished he could approach it with the same cavalier attitude, there was so much more at stake…

At first, he  _ had _ tried to convince the professor to leave him off the battlefield. It hadn’t worked, of course. He was the only one with any natural talent for healing, though Dorothea was starting to show one and the professor had a few healing spells up her sleeve from her time as a mercenary. But he had the talent and he had the Crest that made his healing even more effective, and do that had been the end of that discussion.

Then, it had been their first real battle. Taking care of the bandits at Zanado had been a chilling experience, one he was certainly never going to forget. Even thinking of it as ‘taking care’ of someone when he knew what that really meant was  _ killing them _ made him feel sick to his stomach.

He hadn’t actually taken a life that day. Which was a paltry reassurance when he had seen his classmates do it so much, and he couldn’t exactly hide or avert his eyes because that would probably mean meeting his end at the tip of an enemy’s spear.

Then, across the battlefield, he had seen it. Caspar and his axe versus two bandits, both much bigger than him, one with a lance that had a much longer reach. Ferdinand was moving in to assist after the professor had him covering Dorothea, but there was no way he would get there in time.

“Caspar, look out!” As soon as the words left his mouth he knew he had made a terrible mistake. Caspar had been aware of the enemies without his warning, even if there was precious little he could do about them except try to avoid the worst of their blows; when Linhardt called out to him, though, he turned his head in his direction, taking his eyes away from the lance that was coming straight for him—

Linhardt didn’t even  _ see _ what followed, though he later pieced together that Caspar had,  _ somehow _ , managed to roll out of the way to avoid the worst of it— avoided the lance spearing him right in the neck only to take it in the leg instead. But at the time he had been too terrified to look.

Too terrified to see the end of Caspar’s life.

He would be ashamed about it later. But in that moment the only thing that got him to look back was hearing Caspar yell— pain, not a death gurgle— and the professor calling for him to heal Caspar.

He went with numb hands, numb legs— numb everything, really. Even a numb mind. The only thought he had was channelled into the faith magic and that was,

_ Please don’t let Caspar die here because I distracted him and couldn’t even bear to look at him _ .

Caspar had healed from the injury with little incident and nothing to show for it but a new scar that Linhardt couldn’t stop looking at whenever it was revealed, which thankfully it wasn’t often.

Caspar had plenty of scars. A lot of them were from training; his father was a difficult task master, even Linhardt knew that, and his brother could be ridiculously rough. The rest were mostly from Caspar doing stupid things like climbing trees whose branches weren’t strong enough to hold his weight or going after a stray cat that had crawled under a porch. But this was his first real battle scar, and Linhardt didn’t like that at all.

He told him as much, one day. He couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about before, but he said that and Caspar frowned at him.

“I mean, yeah, it wasn’t fun getting stabbed,” Caspar said. “But that’s just part of being a soldier, right? And besides, you were there to heal me, so it all turned out okay.”

“It’s  _ ridiculous _ ,” Linhardt disagreed immediately. “Expecting us to fight bandits… Those things the Knights were saying about not wanting any of the ‘precious students’ to get hurt? Well, if they didn’t want us to get hurt, why would they send us into live combat situations?”

“It’s a military academy, Linhardt, what’d you expect? We’ve gotta know this kind of stuff if we ever end up going to war.”

“I have no intentions of becoming a soldier, Caspar.” Linhardt sighed. “I only came here because it meant getting away from my family and having a chance to study at my leisure. Do you really want to end up on a battlefield like your father and your brother?”

“It’s kinda what I’ve been training for my whole life, Lin.” Caspar frowned at him. “What’s gotten into you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure that was completely true. He was shaken by their first battle. That was natural though, wasn’t it? It was far more odd to him that so many of his classmates seemed completely unfazed by actually taking a life. Even Caspar seemed so carefree… “I just don’t like to listen to you talk so carelessly about getting hurt. These aren’t scuffles with your brother. You could have quite easily gotten stabbed somewhere much more deadly, and what if I  _ hadn’t _ been there to heal you?”

“But I  _ didn’t _ , and you  _ were _ , so I don’t know why you’re stressing out so much about it!”

“That bandit was twice your size, Caspar—”

“Oh, so this is about my height now?!”

Linhardt sighed as the conversation immediately diverted into Caspar rambling about his height. There would be no dragging it back to serious territory now— not that he wanted to. He couldn’t imagine the conversation going anywhere pleasant if it stayed on the track he’d put it on…

But it certainly left him with something to think about, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

Caspar was the second son of the Bergliez family. He had little guaranteed in his future, and considering his family’s military prominence— his father being  _ literally _ the Minister of Military affairs— a position in the Adrestian Army would be the most obvious course for him. His uncle, whose name Linhardt could never seem to remember, had gone down a similar path when he’d been passed over in favour of Caspar’s father simply due to age…

Linhardt didn’t want to be a battlefield medic. In fact, he would be quite happy to never see a battlefield again. But if he hadn’t been on the battlefield that day?

Well, perhaps Caspar would have been better off without him there to distract him. Or perhaps he would have bled out from a lance through an artery before they could get him to a medic. For once, Caspar had been very, very right about something: neither of those things had happened, and Linhardt had been there to heal him, and despite having a nasty scar that Linhardt would never care to look at, he was alive and whole.

There were too many variables at play to say that would always be the case, of course. But Linhardt knew he could remove at least one of them.

It wasn’t like he really started working any harder, per say, though his class attendance certainly gradually started to improve as he both realized that Professor Byleth had actual useful experience to share with him that he couldn’t glean from books, and that she didn’t seem to care much if he nodded off in class so long as he wasn’t disturbing the other students.

Faith magic had always come naturally to him, for starters, although he usually called it healing or white magic if he had the choice, because he’d never quite understood what ‘faith’ had to do with it in the first place. Linhardt believed in the Goddess, he supposed— he’d always had a particular interest in Crests, and Her very physical influence on Fodlan was well documented enough that he didn’t see the need to question that at some point there had been a woman who had been referred to as Sothis who had performed great feats and been worshipped as a goddess. What she was and whether the Church’s accounts of her were truly accurate, of that he had more doubts, but he would leave that to the theologists and religious scholars, as he had little interest in such matters.

Of course, even the most die hard of non-believers (Hubert came to mind, as despite not being especially vocal about it— or about much of anything, from what Linhardt had seen—, it was easy enough to parse from the fact that despite his magical talents he dismissed faith magic out of hand and had never even set foot in the cathedral, where even Linhardt could occasionally be coaxed or dragged with enough incentive or force) believed in the  _ existence _ of Sothis, in at least some sense. They simply didn’t believe in her mercy, or her power, or the truth of her history, or some combination of the three, or a number of other things. But thanks to the existence of Crests and relics it was hard to deny that  _ some _ being, who might as well be called Sothis, had done  _ something _ that had affected their world…

Maybe, in that way, Linhardt  _ was _ a non-believer. He certainly didn’t care much one way or another about religion in the same way that he didn’t care much one way or another about most anything. He was not a faithful man, but that had never seemed to have much effect on his healing abilities, and so he had never given him much pause.

That wasn’t quite true, though; Linhardt had quite a bit of faith. It simply wasn’t the sort of faith he was sure was meant when people talked about faith magic. He had faith in his own abilities. And he had faith in Caspar; specifically, he had faith that Caspar would always fight as hard as absolutely possible.

Which also meant he knew for a fact that Caspar was going to get hurt a lot. He’d always been prone to getting hurt a lot, and just grinning and bearing it, if he even  _ noticed _ it. But this wasn’t scraps and bruises from playing in places he shouldn’t be, or even the injuries he would get from the rough training with his family; this was real combat, and a bad injury could have dire consequences.

_ “And besides, you were there to heal me, so it all turned out okay.” _

Linhardt had faith in his own abilities. But it never hurt to be  _ particularly _ sure, especially when he had the entirety of Garreg Mach, its libraries and facilities and teachers, at his service. Teaching him what he would need to know if he one day went to war in the name of his country like a good, loyal minion of the Empire would be expected to, and like everyone knew was somewhere on the horizon, no matter what anyone spouted about times of peace.

When human beings didn’t have a  _ reason _ to go to war, they would invent one, as anyone who had studied enough of Fodlan’s history could tell you. Linhardt had studied quite a bit of Fodlan’s history; he had fixated on it a while before zeroing in more specifically on Crests. He also considered himself rather good at pattern recognition, and not nearly as oblivious to those around him as some would assume. He could see the signs.

And Caspar was going to end up on a battlefield. That much he knew. He was right when he said it was what he’d been training for his entire life. His father, his brother, Caspar— the Bergliez family, they were soldiers.

Linhardt couldn’t imagine a more horrid fate. He wasn’t one to lie down and accept what was set out before him, but if his options were ‘soldier’ and ‘nobleman forced into a loveless marriage to make as many Crest-bearing children as possible’, he knew which one he would choose.

But there was one thing Linhardt would choose before anything else— before freedom, possibly even before his own  _ life _ , depending on when you asked him and how sentimental he was feeling at the time.

Caspar.

It was probably rather overdramatic for him to say something like that, which was why he kept it to himself. It was sentimental and not at all like him, and he was certain that had everything to do with the fact that he had nearly watched Caspar get skewered on the battlefield and then  _ had not been able to stop _ .

Caspar was not just a frontlines soldier. Caspar rushed headlong into battle like he was  _ asking _ to have his head removed from his neck. Linhardt was beginning to lose track of the number of times Caspar had barely escaped a much more serious wound because of the Professor’s keen tactics, or a bit of pure luck on his part, or even someone else coming to his rescue.

Linhardt hadn’t taken a life in their very first battle, but that hadn’t lasted long. His reason was every bit as strong as his faith, after all, and magic could come to the rescue far faster than another soldier on foot could.

He knew Caspar was good at fighting, but he also lacked things like restraint or patience. And though Linhardt maintained a cool facade when it came to the matter (and tried to throw himself even further into his research as a distraction), seeing him get hurt on the battlefield only made his desire to improve his skills even stronger. Of course, he thankfully didn’t need to take much initiative even to do that; Professor Byleth took her job as their teacher quite seriously and proved an excellent instructor, and so all he had to do was show up to class and not seem too put out when she gave him his assignments.

He never said anything to Caspar. He wouldn’t even know where to begin, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you could just come out and say, was it?

‘Even though I despise violence and blood and everything about battle and war, I’m training to become a better field medic so I can keep you from dying on the battlefield because that sounds even worse to me than a life spent being on one myself.’

No, no. Saying those things… Sounded  _ exhausting _ . Not only because Caspar would no doubt want to talk to him about it, or worse,  _ wouldn’t _ want to talk to him about it, but because it also meant having to stop and think about why he felt that way and what it all meant.

So he just kept it to himself, and acted like it wasn’t important to him, and pushed it all down to deal with another time.

It turned out that ‘another time’ was ‘five years later after a particularly nasty run in with some demonic beasts’.

Linhardt had never wanted to go to war. The Black Eagle Strike Force, as a concept, meant nothing to him. Oh, certainly he didn’t want anything to happen to his former classmates— despite his best efforts, and occasionally theirs, he had come to care for all of them. But the concept of being the sword of the Empire, fighting for Edelgard’s vision?

He wasn’t even sure the rest of them believed in it, either, with the exception of Hubert. It was hard to offer any more real faith to Edelgard and her vision than he ever had to the Church when it was painfully obvious that there was  _ something _ big that she was keeping from the rest of them…

Linhardt was sure Caspar was more enthusiastic about it than he was, of course. He gave himself wholly to everything. He fought with every bit of himself that he had to offer, especially when he was given a cause. Linhardt was also sure that it gave him an edge over some soldiers who had been worn down by the war, while he still had the same boundless energy and enthusiasm that he’d always had, even in the face of so much horror… In fact, some days, seeing Caspar smile and cheer and go on like a fool over the smallest of accomplishments or victories was the only thing that kept Linhardt from packing up his things and walking off into the night.

Unfortunately, demonic beasts didn’t care a lick about enthusiasm.

“You are an idiot, Caspar. An absolute fool.”

“So you… ouch! So you said, Lin. Hey, that’s pretty tight…”

Linhardt didn’t apologize, just huffed as he loosened the bandage he’d been wrapping around Caspar’s ribs.

“I’ll keep telling you as many times as I need for it to sink in, and perhaps then you’ll stop charging creatures twenty times your size  _ on your own _ .”

His hand warmed with magic as he rubbed it down Caspar’s chest, seeking out any nook or cranny it might have missed, while the bandages provided extra support to allow them to heal properly beyond what magic could accomplish.

The bleeding had already stopped, thankfully, but it didn’t matter anymore. Linhardt still hated the sight of blood, particularly Caspar’s blood, but he had gotten used to it. It still filled him with that ice-cold feeling just behind his ribs that made it hard for him to breathe, but he could push through it now.

“Yeah, yeah.” Caspar was pouting, which had been ridiculous when he’d done it when they were kids and was even more ridiculous now that they were grown men. “I just don’t know what you expect from me, Lin. You really think I’m just going to stand there and let it attack me first, or attack one of our friends? Or  _ you _ ?”

Caspar shook his head like  _ he _ was the one being ridiculous, when  _ he _ was the one being patched up. Linhardt felt annoyance bubbling up in him, in that same place as the patch of cold that always infested his lungs on seeing Caspar hurt.

“Frankly, I would rather face down one of those horrible things than watch you charge headfirst into their waiting mouths. I can heal you from a stray arrow or a lucky swipe from a sword, but there really isn’t anything I can do if you go and get yourself chewed up and digested, is there?”

To emphasize, Linhardt gave a smack to Caspar’s chest where he finished wrapping his bandages, though he made sure to steer clear of any part of him that actually had an injury. Caspar still let out a loud, pained noise, but Linhardt had enough experience (goddess how he wished he didn’t) with Caspar being in pain that he could tell the difference between  _ real _ pain and Caspar being whiny.

“C’mon, Lin, I’m out here fighting so you don’t  _ have  _ to worry about any of that kind of stuff.”

“And I’m only on the battlefield in the first place to keep you from ending up dead, or worse!”

The words spilled out of him before he could stop himself, huffing and glaring at him, feeling the hair on the back of his neck standing up.

It wasn’t like him criticizing Caspar or getting annoyed with him was rare, but Linhardt wasn’t the sort who raised his voice— at all, really. It was too much effort. That was the excuse he always used for— well, for just about everything, really.

Now, though— Now it was hard to hide the amount of effort he had been putting in for five whole years now.

“You… What?”

Caspar was suddenly staring at him with his mouth hanging open, and Linhardt looked away, rising to get out of his chair.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about. Get some rest, Caspar. I’m not going to be to blame if your wounds don’t heal properly and you run out onto the battlefield half-healed.”

Caspar stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“Lin… Wait. Just a second?”

Caspar would probably be pouting again if he turned to look at him, so he didn’t. But he did let Caspar pull him back down into the chair next to his cot and didn’t complain when Caspar didn’t release his wrist, instead lacing their fingers together.

“You’re really out here, just for me?”

“It’s a big more complicated than that,” Linhardt lied, because no, it really wasn’t.

He could have very easily gone back to Hevring territory, taken up his father’s mantle and spent his days warding off marriage offers. Edelgard had plenty of talented people under her command; she wouldn’t have forced him onto the front lines if he hadn’t volunteered.

The only reason he had stayed with the Black Eagle Strike Force through the years was because of Caspar, and he had accepted that fact long ago.

Maybe he didn’t always act like it, with his deadpan teasing and his blunt way of speaking and the fact that he’d  _ never _ really excelled at showing affection, but he would have followed Caspar anywhere. He would have done anything for Caspar.

He knew the feeling was mutual, too, because Caspar would gladly shout it from the rooftops if he were permitted (and Linhardt didn’t care if he did or not but some of their other allies and friends had Opinions regarding Caspar’s antics).

“After our first real mission at the Academy,” he said, slowly, almost carefully. “When you nearly got skewered by those bandits and you told me that it was fine because I was there to heal you? Well, if you aren’t going to stay off the battlefield, then I have to be certain I’m there to make sure you  _ leave _ the battlefield in one piece.”

He didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Not Dorothea, not the professor. They were good, of course, and they cared. Of course they cared. But Caspar was his responsibility.

He  _ hated _ having responsibilities, but he could tolerate it, because it was  _ Caspar _ .

“And you just said you’re fighting to protect  _ me _ .” His emotions had gotten the better of him, so he was only just starting to have that sink in, the idea that Caspar was fighting to keep  _ him _ safe. Of course, it didn’t hold quite the same weight, because unlike Linhardt Caspar quite enjoyed fighting, but…

It made him feel almost… Warm, all the same.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Caspar gave his hand a squeeze where their fingers were still laced together. Another thing he hadn’t really processed was the fact that they had just been casually holding hands for the past few minutes, but since neither of them had ever been shy about showing affection (when Linhardt could muster the energy for any kind of display beyond falling asleep on Caspar’s shoulder or letting him carry him around, of course), it hadn’t really registered as odd to him…

“And then, when this whole war is over, we’ll both be alive and in one piece and we’ll be able to go anywhere and do anything we want,” Caspar continued, running his thumb over Linhardt’s knuckles.

“I think after this war, what I’m going to want more than  _ anything _ is a nap.”

“That’s what you  _ always _ want!”

“Yes, and I doubt all of this violence and bloodshed is going to do much to change that. Everything about being at war is  _ exhausting _ .”

“Well, when the war is done,  _ I’m _ going to just— take off on an adventure. See the world. Fodlan’s a massive place and I want to see all of it— and Dagda, and Brigid, and pretty much everywhere else!”

The sound of Caspar’s rambling was almost as comforting as his warm, calloused hand and the way his thumb kept running over his knuckles rhythmically.

“And, you know— there’s probably going to be bandits and wild animals and all sorts of things that could get me hurt.”

Linhardt raised an eyebrow at him. “Mm. And that’s not even considering the possibility of you falling off a cliff. Or a horse. Or a particularly high curb.”

“H-hey, I’m trying to have a moment here!” Caspar was pouting at him again, but he lightened up when Linhardt laid his free hand over their joined ones, rubbing his hand up Caspar’s wrist and bare forearm. “What I’m trying to say is—”

“—You’re going to need someone around to make sure you survive?”

Caspar blinked, wide eyed, like he didn’t expect Linhardt to pick up on what he was saying quite so easily. But Linhardt, as always, was good at pattern recognition.

“I’m sure I can manage on my own,” he said, turning away and blushing, and at least Linhardt didn’t have to worry about being the only one who was embarrassed— and since Caspar wore his heart on his sleeve and Linhardt most certainly did not, he felt especially reassured. “I mean, it would be pretty exhausting. Probably a lot of sleeping on the ground.”

“Caspar, I followed you into a  _ war  _ to keep you alive.” Linhardt gave the back of his hand a comforting pat. “I’m not going to let you wander off and end up in a ditch somewhere. Not when I can do something about it.”

“W-well… I guess that’s settled then.” Caspar cleared his throat and gave his hand a squeeze, that Linhardt responded to by squeezing back with both hands. “I dunno where I’d be without you, Lin.”

“Dead, probably,” Linhardt answered honestly with a genuine smile.

“Lin!”

He chuckled, but it came out as more of a gentle exhale as he slumped forwards, resting his head on Caspar’s shoulder. Caspar used his free hand to reach up and pat the back of his head, but the awkward angle meant he had to turn over, and he let a hiss out through his teeth that made Linhardt’s head snap up.

“You had better not make my job any more difficult than it already needs to be,” Linhardt said, reaching up to pinch Caspar’s cheek quite violently, making the skin turn a bright reddish-pink. “I already put far more effort into keeping you alive than I do anything else.”

“Ouch! And I, ngh, appreciate it, Linny.” When Linhardt released his pinch he reached up to rub his face. “...Thanks. I mean it.”

“No need to thank me, Caspar,” Linhardt said with a sigh, but a fond one. “I couldn’t imagine doing anything less.”


End file.
